Defeatist Compromising Commentary From Reason Magazine

[Nick Gillespie]

All,

I appreciate your response to Cathy Young's recent column that was
originally written for the Boston Globe and posted recently to reason.com.
As I've noted to the Politech list, Young is a highly valued and often
controversial contributor to REASON, both in print and on line, and I'm
happy to post her writings even when I disagree with her on a specific
issue, including encryption and whether the threat of terrorism should
shrink civil liberties.
As you may know, I and other members of the REASON writing community
consistently and adamantly argue in favor of unfettered encryption, freedom
from government oversight, and maximum civil, personal, and economic
liberties in all spheres of human activity. For the unconvinced, I
recommend a wider walk through our site and our print magazine (including
our December issue, which features Declan McCullagh's contribution--among
others--to a symposium about which civil liberties are most at risk in the
government's new total war against terrorism).

Yours,

Nick

**************
Nick Gillespie
Editor-in-Chief
REASON magazine
www.reason.com
gillespie at reason.com
**************
  -----Original Message-----
  From: Tim May [mailto:tcmay at got.net]
  Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 10:33 PM
  To: cypherpunks at lne.com
  Cc: Nilsphone at aol.com; freematt at coil.com; gillespie at reason.com;
davidn at reason.org; Charles Platt
  Subject: Re: Defeatist Compromising Commentary From Reason Magazine


  On Wednesday, September 26, 2001, at 06:15 PM, Nilsphone at aol.com wrote:


    In a message dated 2001-09-26 17:21 Pacific Daylight Time,
freematt at coil.com writes:


    "Between Cato arguing for victim disarmament
    and Reason arguing that "right to liberty is preceded by the right to
    life," I say we just kill them all and let Rand sort them out."  If
    you find Ms. Young's comments against encryption disturbing please
    write to Nick Gillespie <gillespie at reason.com> Editor-in-Chief of
    Reason Magazine and David Nott <davidn at reason.org> President, Reason
    Foundation.]



    I think Reason got it wrong. Crypto technology might simplify a
    terrorist's life a little, that is all. If there are no secure
channels,
    terrorists can meet in person. The "GO" order can be done in the clear,
    "lets go" needs no encryption. Alternatively, low volume comm
    between people who know each other, and can meet beforehand,
    can easily be done using one time pad, which are drop dead easy to
    use, foolproof (as long as you dont lose or re-use them) etc, but not
    suitable for mass communication. I can write a one-time-pad program
    in minutes that does it all for you. You need a source for the pads,
GM-tubes
    are best, rooms full of lava lamps and a digital camera have been used.
    Not very hard, can be set up at a central location, once, and then the
pads
    distributed by hand. (This latter is a must and the catch in mass
communications.)

    Nils Andersson
    (long time Reason subscriber, from the beginning in the 70-s)



  They fucking DID meet in person! There is not one iota, not one shred, of
evidence that Atta and and his 20 or so co-conspirators used "crypto" in
any form! (Including image file steganography, the form I invented in
1989-90 and which Kevin Kelly profiled in his book "Out of Control," based
on interviews in 1992. I mention this because several journalists have been
writing b.s stories aoubt Osama using "steganography, files hidden in
images.' B.S.)

  And even had Atta and Company used crypto, which there is no evidence
whatsoever of, this would be no more justification for "key escrow" or
"backdoors" than the use of curtains by Al Capone to hide his activities
was grounds for "transparency escrow" modes in curtains or for banning
sealed envelopes. Most crime takes place out of sight of law enforcement.
So?

  Atta and his co-conspirators met in apartments, motel rooms, and sent
overnight letters. Unless the bozos at Reason are arguing for opening of
all mail, for microphones in motel rooms, for "1984" levels of apartment
surveillance, there is nothing that could have been done to stop the
planning.

  This is all just very basic stuff, written about by some of us in the
mid-80s. That so many journalists are just now "discovering" the crypto
issue is symptomatic of our times.

  That bimbo at "Reason" is why "Reason" is just another enemy of liberty.

  --Tim May

  (P.S. I used to read "Reason" back when it was published out of my
college town, Santa Barbara. Circa 1971-2 or so, maybe '73. A friend of
mine knew Rob Poole pretty well. And I voted for John Hospers in '72. And
my roommate at UCSB later worked for "Reason." And so on. But it got so
repetitive and boring that I stopped reading it around 1980. They have
missed out on the important trends.)